Letter to President Bush

Greetings to you from a Christian pilgrim recently returned from the Holy Land. The experiences and impressions gathered there compel me to write to you. I was a member of an observer group from the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation to the Episcopal Conference Working Group on Christians of the Holy Land attended by Catholic Bishops from Europe, Canada and the United States.

Greetings to you from a Christian pilgrim recently returned from the Holy Land. The experiences and impressions gathered there compel me to write to you. I was a member of an observer group from the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation to the Episcopal Conference Working Group on Christians of the Holy Land attended by Catholic Bishops from Europe, Canada and the United States.

The Bishops concluded their conference with recommendations to their respective national conferences that favored a significant increase in attention to relief efforts to assist the Christian Arab communities in the Holy Land. Christian leadership in the Holy Land and around the world is concerned about the increasing emigration of Arab Christians from the Holy Land. If present demographic trends continue, within a generation or two, the descendents of the original Christians who first heard Jesus teach will no longer be present in the Holy Land to carry the 2000 year old legacy of Christian heritage into the future.

All who attended the conference were deeply disturbed by the destructive effects of the Israeli Military Occupation on all the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. The Bishops called for an end to the occupation.

After the conference we visited many of the Christian communities in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Birzeit, Taybeh, Jifna, Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jalla. Most of the remaining Christians living in Palestine are located in these communities. They, like their Muslim brothers and sisters, suffer from the military restrictions placed on their economy, travel, work, and civil lives. As an American, I am ashamed of our country’s policies that encourage the degradation of their society. More importantly, our unconditional political, military, and economic support of Israel’s Palestinian policies has created a situation that has seriously degraded the relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians. Israelis have created yet another ghetto believing that their security depends on continual Arab humiliation and degradation. Arabs, through their humiliation, do everything to strike back and take satisfaction from their injuries to Israeli society. This perverse logic has no solution. More importantly, both parties to the conflict have become dehumanized and thus justify the injuries done to each other. At the base of this hatred is America’s policy in the Middle East that unconditionally supports Israel and its actions.

Mr. President, everywhere we went we were reminded of Prime Minister Sharon’s complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacre and his hand in causing their present misery. Our Palestinian Christian friends find it incomprehensible that you would continue support this evil person and his actions.

Much of the sympathy and good will America received from the Middle East as a result of the September 11 tragedy has been squandered by our unconditional support of Israel’s latest assault on Palestinian society during the past few months. All conversations with Christian Palestinians were laced with a sense that the Christian West had abandoned them and that the United States was to blame for their suffering at the hands of the Israelis.

The Israeli drive (supported by the United States) to create Palestinian enclaves with limited Palestinian self-rule is in sharp contrast to the hopes created by the Madrid and Oslo accords. The promise of an independent, sovereign state was not to be. Palestinians are not cowed by Israel and continue to resist their oppressor. With good humor, they have learned to play the deadly game that pits one society against the other.

Palestinians have put their differences aside and their society has coalesced and has thus been strengthened by the conflict. Humanitarians everywhere are mounting coalitions to alleviate suffering and create forces to break the deadlock despite the destructive efforts of the United States and Israel. Investment in human resources and infrastructure continues and is supported by a broad coalition of governments and organizations who still believe in the hope of a just society in Palestine. I am sorry to observe that my country, the United States, is not playing a leading role in the rehabilitation of Palestine.

As a loyal citizen of the United States, I write to you to express my concern about the dangerous nature of our foreign policy in the Middle East. Since we consume vast quantities of Middle East oil, it is incomprehensible to me that we continue to alienate the very region that sells its oil to us. The Palestinian question, unless settled satisfactorily based on our interests rather than the interests of Israel and its supporters in the United States, will continue to poison our relationship with the people of the Arab and Muslim world. Eventually, our policies will destabilize the friendly ruling regimes in the region and create havoc for those in the Middle East and for America. More radical regimes unfriendly to the United States wait in the wings since there is much support for this kind of political transformation among the populace.

American military power will not be able to create or maintain a permanent Pax Americana in the region. Arab and Muslim resentment of our continued support of injustice for Palestinians will sabotage all our efforts to maintain relationships with oil producing nations that will assure the United States a secure supply of oil.

We must balance our foreign policy in the Middle East based on UN resolutions 338 and 442. It is in our best national interests to do so. It is in America’s interest to support the establishment of a Palestinian state and end the degradation and humiliation of Palestinian society. Recognizing Palestine as a sovereign and independent state free of Israeli interference and dominance will reverse the destructive effects to our interests in the region caused by our present Middle East policies.

Palestinians have recognized Israel’s right to exist and merely want to be left alone to repair the damage done to their people caused by 54 years of conflict and 34 years of military occupation. I urge you to reassess our nation’s role in the conflict and pursue a more balanced strategy of peace and reconciliation in the region.